RBC analyst Matthew Hedberg, however, said he doesn't know of any current suitors for Teradata, Informatica, Tibco or another company, Qlik Technologies (QLIK), getting new coverage. He estimates the prices for all the companies, except possibly Teradata, are too high to attract acquirers. He also wrote that "merger and acquisition activity remains healthy in software and particularly in Big Data."

Big Data is a marketing term referring to the massive troves of complex data that many companies — biotechs, Web 2.0, retailers, insurance firms — are collecting and storing for computer-automated strategic analysis.

"Big Data has emerged as one of the most overused, overhyped and misunderstood terms in technology," Hedberg wrote. "Regardless, it is hard to deny the exponential growth in data and, in turn, the opportunity for technology firms to benefit from business executives' curiosity to discover trends that give them a competitive advantage."

He rated Qlik market perform.

"We believe each of the four companies we are initiating on plays a considerable role in the growth of data and should benefit from favorable trends such as cloud computing, social networking, mobile computing and increasingly complex data centers," Hedberg said.

Shares of Teradata, down a fraction in midday trading Friday, are up more than 20% this year, despite a recent sell-off. Informatica, Tibco and Qlik are all down more than 13%.